It was a high street of sorts.
There was lamplight and the buzzing of neon signs in the windows of bars that
had closed or just weren’t that popular. The street seemed to tail off into the
distance and in the dark James could see not a single soul.
It had the feel of a lonely walk of
shame about it. There air wasn’t cold though he could see his breath as he
walked. His feet splashed on the pavement, yet his feet felt bone dry in his
canvas shoes.
Above him James could make out a
few stars. The night had a blue feel to it, where instead of the black the sky
has a hue of deep purple about it. The pollution of the bright city centre had
not driven the stars away this evening and he could see the belt of Orion as
bright as headlights.
A rustling ahead made him pause in
thought, but not in movement. There was a set of old fashioned steel bins on
one of the street corners. It looked bizarre, almost like a snapshot of an old
TV movie. Any second an out of date ford coupe would career round the corner
and knock the bins flying without damaging the car or the playful repartee of
the comically mismatched policemen inside.
But this time there was no
excitement. For that they would have had to have been chasing something. And
there wasn’t a sound of larceny, let alone a car chase in the air.
There were not just bins though.
The usual mound of trash had appeared. The evening before pick up and the bins
were simply an atoll in a sea of black plastic bags. The galvanised surface of
the lids made a patchwork under the yellow street light and the ripped bags
waved and rippled with the wind, spitting detritus occasionally along the
pavement.
James paused at the bins and looked
left and right along the intersection. Wondering about traffic and also the
right way home. This was a problem, he didn’t seem to recognise either
direction. To the left was a short street that led to a rather green square.
The stumpy street lighting and park benches that lined the street next to the
bus stop looked familiar, but it was not a place that he could put a finger on
or a name to. To the right it was just as perplexing.
“You lost?”
James didn’t turn around. He had
known that someone was there, but had not expected it to talk.
“Yeah” James replied. Still looking
ahead.
“There’s no point in heading up
there.”
“Why’s that then?” James replied.
He wondered if he should turn around and talk to his new acquaintance. They had
had an exchange of words now and it would seem very rude indeed not to
introduce himself.
“I’m James” he swivelled on his
right foot and held out a hand.
“That’s nice”
There was no one there. James was
taken aback, but a little less surprised than he thought he would be.
“Hello?” he said aloud to the
street.
“Er hello?” the voice returned.
“Who am I talking to?” James asked.
“Me you idiot!”
“Who are you?”
“Do you know you are a complete
idiot?”
That was hardly fair, thought
James. He had after all been talking to someone who appeared not to be there in
body.
“Now I don’t think that’s very
fair” James began before he heard a loud and rather exasperated sigh.
“Look down”
James did and was rather taken
aback.
“Hello” said the fox.
James was silent. Before him was a
rather healthy, yet sleek auburn fox. A long bushy tail and a rather
mischievous face, although foxes always seem to have a sense of mischief about
them, the fox sat on its hind quarters and tilted its head to one side.
“You alright son?” the fox said.
“Er”
“Now don’t start the silly er thing
with me” the fox said, although he was annunciating every word it was hard not
to notice a hint of a Birmingham
accent in the fox’s voice.
“Er”
“You have a bit of a problem here
son” the fox continued. “A friendly gentleman of leisure has stopped you in the
street to offer you directions and you’re completely speechless.” He turned
quickly and chewed at his hip before returning to fix his gaze on James, the
momentary preen took half a second.
“Er”
“I think when they showed you that
video in school about avoiding strangers they were talking about the nasty man
with the white van and the mangy puppy” The fox took a step closer to James,
James took a step back, the fox was only up to his knee, but it was still a
little intimidating.
The fox took another step forward
but this time James held his ground. This was rather ridiculous, but
nevertheless the fox was correct. James was in need of directions. He had come
to a juncture and had absolutely no idea which way to go. James steeled himself
for the fox to run away and for this all to have been one big silly figment of
his imagination. He knelt down.
“Sorry about that” James said, his
Edinburgh drawl sounding a little out of place in the space that had until then
been occupied solely by the voice of the black country. “I’m James McMillan” he
held his hand out. The fox looked at it rather despondently.
“What am I supposed to do with that
James?” the fox asked, “I can’t exactly give you a good hard city boy handshake
with a paw the size of your thumb.”
“Oh, sorry” James stood up again,
“I didn’t really think about that”
“That’s no problem James” The fox
stood and stretched his legs, “my name’s Derrick.”
James immediately wondered at the
name. “Strange name for a fox” he said out loud before he could stifle himself.
The fox’s ears pricked a little and
then slackened.
“What was the last fox you met
called?” he asked.
“I’ve never really spoken to a fox before” James
stuttered, “but I thought Renard was always a good name for a fox”
“You realise that means fox?” Derrick
had a quizzical look on his face, the long snout seemed to wrinkle a little and
his eyes narrowed. “It would be like you calling yourself homme or something, a
little bizarre don’t you think?”
“Yes, well I suppose so”
“So what are you doing on my street
corner then James?” The fox interrupted.
“I suppose I’m kind of lost” James
replied.
“Aha!” Derrick cried out, “so I was
right, you are lost.”
“Well yes”
The fox trotted, or rather padded
around James’ legs.
“So where are you attempting to get
to?” The fox asked, not looking at James but rather back where he had come
from.
“I’m trying to get home” James
replied, wondering why the fox had taken such an interest in the long and
rather dark street.
“Anywhere nice?” The fox asked,
slowly starting walk, head up back the way James had come.
“Well yes” James replied. “I’m up
in the new town, I’m renting a flat with my girlfriend at the moment.
“New town you say” the fox moved
on, trotting slowly allowing James to catch up with him and then moving on a
little more.
“Yes” the hope sprang out of James’
mouth.
“Fraid I have no idea the fox said”
he moved on a little more, “but I may know someone who does, come on, we can
talk on the way”
James, despite himself, saw no
reason not to and followed patiently behind the fox. His tail, unusually for
the foxes that James had seen, was far more upright, usually foxes were slinky
sullen creatures that scampered with a rather moribund sense of dread around
the towns at night, slurping and picking what they could off the refuse that
others had left behind. Derrick was a little different. He was positive, no,
that was too weak a word. Derrick was buoyant; he was keen and most of all he
could talk. James decided that he ought to broach the subject.
“Derrick” the fox had started to
mutter to himself and didn’t respond.
“Derrick!” James called again, this
time the fox stopped, turned and grinned. It was almost comical the way that
his mouth curved and the joy in his eyes lit. But it was reassuring all the
same.
“Yes fella” the fox replied
“Do you mind if I ask you a
question?”
“Not at all” the fox said, “as long
as it’s not the one about where babies come from”
“No” James didn’t really know what
to make of the fox’s attempt at humour, but continued anyway. “It’s really”
James tried to get the sentence out, “you see” he tried again. The fox had
turned and continued walking.
“Go on James, I’m listening” James
continued to stutter.
“Well it’s about this listening and
talking thing really” James finally got it out, “and, well the fact is” he
paused, “the fact is, I’ve never met a fox who could talk, or listen for that
matter.”
“You’ve been deprived, haven’t you”
Derrick said, “but come on, are you saying you’ve never met a fox?”
“Not one that can talk”
“But we all talk” Derrick said, stopping
and turning to face his companion, “maybe you just weren’t listening?”
“But I don’t speak fox”
“We all speak English son” the fox
continued at a brisker pace.
“This is part of the problem
really” Derrick started to talk as if he had something important to say.
“What do you mean?”
“Well we never really get a good
grasp on our meaning.” The fox continued, “if I’m say, trying it on with a
vixen you know, and I’m turning on the charm I’m saying one thing, for example
“would you like to come and spend some time on my street corner, or even have a
look at the Badger set I’ve been crashing in recently” but what I’m really
saying is that I would like to get said vixen in a series of compromising
positions while whispering sweet nothings in her ear.” The fox paused and
turned round to face James. “It’s language. The fact is that we just don’t use
it well enough to communicate our desires. The chances are that if I expressed
my honest desires to said vixen she might well say yes, of course and while
we’re at it may I say what a lovely bush you have their Derrick. Well to be
honest she’s more likely to give me a good slap or take a bite out of me arse,
but there we go. Where was I? Yeah, language. I mean I’m not saying that what
you don’t understand you pass over in silence, but the world is a big old place
and there’s more than just you and me in it, so you need to figure out a way of
communicating. Now this evening I said hello first and you immediately thought
it was another bloke. You answered back and we started to communicate, albeit
with a few ums and ers. I used to think that language was a precise thing, that
you had to be very clear with the way you expressed yourself. But to be honest,
today, I reckon if you give it a bit of effort, the right message gets out in
the end.
“Er right” James said. Not really
knowing what the fox had been talking about. They continued down the road.
“Hang on” Derrick stopped, James
waited for another nugget of rapid fire wisdom from the diminutive creature.
“we should be going right here”.
The road looked very much like the
last road they had been on. The yellow lighting gave the wet road a sickly
feel. Like a jaundiced skin the greens and yellows that bounced off the
reflective surfaces of the roads and the windows created an oppressive
atmosphere. James found it rather hard to walk and slowed his pace
considerably.
“What was I yakking about” Derrick
asked.
“Language” James replied.
“Oh yeah, don’t listen to me, I
harp on all the time about that. I guess I’m just in favour of passion taking
over precision. Now perspectives are my pet topic. Take us for example and your
assumption about me. You thought I was a bloke and so were happy to engage me
in conversation. There’s not many out there who have tried and for the most
part when they have the fox who’s being talked to simply responds with a bit of
a growl or a screech, usually the screech as they’re bloody terrified. Have you
ever seen a fox hunt? Not pretty if you’re on the receiving end of one of those
I can tell you. But you my friend, you are in a prime position to think very
carefully about this quandary. You have been living a lie. All your life you
thought, when it comes to foxes, they were animals. But, the cloud has been
lifted. Your ability to reason had told you. Right James, now these things
called foxes, their small, nasty, smell bad and they eat your rubbish, if I
were you son I’d avoid them. But the truth of the matter is that your
preconceptions, no hang on, your very conception of what is real and what is
not real were all cocked.”
“So you’re saying my brain has been
playing a trick on me?” James asked, “that all this time I’ve been thinking
about foxes, my brain has been telling me things that weren’t true?”
“No” Derrick paused, a thoughtful
fox he seemed to want to express himself clearly, despite his earlier
protestations to the contrary. “I reckon your perception has been blighted by
society, by your upbringing, by your education and by the very habits you’ve
developed over the past however many years you’ve been around, how long do you
monkeys live anyway?”
“Not long enough” James replied.
“So you’re saying that it’s all been one big conspiracy?”
“Conspiracy?” the fox laughed out
loud, “come on son, it’s hardly going to be in the planet’s best interests to
keep you in the dark on the specifics of communication vis a vis the fox
population of Great Britain.
Think of it more a problem of the human, and indeed the fox condition. We can
never know, I mean really know, if the world around us is real, if everything
is happening as we believe and perceive it to be, or not.”
“I don’t get it”
“Well James” the fox turned and
stopped, they had passed through the rather sickly green of the street and
taken another right onto an avenue lined with tall poplar trees and the kind of
park benches you find in parks in London.
Greying wood and painted steel work. Derrick jumped onto one of the benches so
he could look James a little closer in the eye. “the point here is that you can
necver really know anything for certain. You can start with the whole how do I
know that I’m not dreaming thing and then you wake upand you’re not certain if
what you just experienced was a dream or what you are now experiencing is a
dream and so on and so on. I mean that wouldn’t work because you always end up
knowing if you’re in a dream. Don’t you?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” James
paused and Derrick bit him, “ow! What did you do that for?”
“Sorry” Derrick grinned, “you were
about to ask if this was a dream.”
James shook his hand as if he had
cramp.
“Fine” he stepped back from the
fox, “I’m not dreaming”
“So the point was” Derrick paused
again, “the point was, you can never really know if the choices you make are
right or wrong, because the information you use to make those judgements is
fundamentally flawed.”
“That’s a little pessimistic isn’t
it?” James asked.
“Not at all” the fox replied, “it’s
beautifully chaotic. I wouldn’t let it bother you too much though, you’ll end
up waking at five every morning wondering if you’re dreaming or you really did
move to Sweden.”
The pair walked on. The street was
not one that James recognised and he hadn’t been able to see a street sign for
a long time. The avenues were getting wider though and he recognised the
Georgian architecture as quintessentially Scottish.
“So where are we going?”
“To see someone who should know how
to get you home.” The fox replied. Although he does tend to go on a little bit.
We may even get a bit of a feed out of this. Depends what mood he’s in.
They rounded a corner, the fox now
moving at quite a pace. The smell then hit James’ nose.
“What is that?” he cried.
“You only just getting that?”
Derrick seemed astonished, “I had that smell back at the bins.
It was a glorious sensation. James
felt every piece of fried food he had ever tried float in front of his nose.
The air was full of sausage and burgers, but there was more to it than that, he
could smell chicken and venison, he could smell onions being fried and tea
being brewed. It was the greatest burger van ever and yet he hadn’t even seen
it yet.
“There we are” Derrick pointed with
his nose to the distant stall. “Dudley’s one
of the smartest bears I know, if he doesn’t know how to get you home, he’ll
know who will.”
“Excellent” said James, anxious to
see more of the stall and it’s wares. “Just one thing though Derrick.”
“Yes mate”
“Bears?”